Rare Ltd is trying to find its sea legs again. After being a powerhouse three generations ago on the N64, they really haven’t hit a stride as part of Microsoft. Sure they’ve had a few games but none that harkened back to the days of Banjo-Kazooie or Conker’s Bad Fur Day. Hopefully their take on pirates whisks us back to their prime and gives us a pirate game we deserve. Sea of Thieves was announced at 2015’s E3, but really scant news about the title has been released. I had to scour the Internet like a pirate looking for booty to find any information on this title.
Just from the trailer, you can tell the title is going be grandiose, with ships to upgrade, crews to attain, treasure to plunder, villages to raid, and so on. What the trailer didn’t tell us, I did happen to find out. The game is an MMO with first-person controls on land, which switches to third-person during ship battles. This is a nice little perspective touch, seeing as it would be hard to control a huge lumbering ship in first-person. It will be exciting to wage huge naval battles with buddies or with complete strangers. I know that I got hooked with the dogfighting in Battlefront; I’m sure if I pick this up, the sea battles will hook me.
What I am worried about and what puts me off a little on this game is the fact that it is an MMO style game. This means that you are going to need friends who own an Xbox One, and this game is something that may not be too readily available. There are plenty of multiplayer games that people are already invested in; Destiny, The Division, and Elder Scrolls Online, Battleborn and Overwatch to name a few. In addition, some gamers may not feel the draw of the high seas if they’ve already taken a stab at Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag. I also have an extremely bad taste in my mouth from my last MMO experience, Destiny. In the beginning, I was all in with Destiny: I enjoyed the combat, the level system, the drops and so on. Then my relationship with Destiny soon turned sour; they wanted money for me to play more quests and to level up more. Then, to get the best drops and experience, one had to play on the highest difficulty, which is nigh impossible alone. As my friends slowly left Destiny, I realized I got duped and I honestly am very leery of MMO’s now.
Microsoft had better bring some more information about Sea of Thieves to E3 or this ship may be dead in the water. I don’t want another Destiny situation on my hands, but I really want to have free reign in a pirate environment. I’m frightened that I will have to play with a dedicated group of friends to enjoy this tile. If I can enjoy it on my own, and then have some buddies join me to make the game more enjoyable, I’m all for that; that’s how I played and excelled in Left 4 Dead (I beat all those campaigns alone and had a blast. When my friends finally played, I had to carry them through the missions). However, if I MUST play with people to get the full experience, I won’t be purchasing this title.